1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic endoscope for inserting an endoscope into the stomach or other body cavity and displaying an image of the body cavity on a monitor for examination, and more particularly relates to a setting operation by which an operation condition of the electronic endoscope is set.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known an electronic endoscope in which an operation condition, such as a brightness adjustment of an image, can be set. In such an electronic endoscope, when the a setting of the operation condition is carried out, the operation condition is changed in accordance with the setting, a set value entered by the setting is recorded in a memory. For example, when a brightness level of an image of the body cavity is set by handling a switch, the brightness of the image is changed based on the set value, and at the same time, a value of the brightness level is recorded in the memory. Then, when the endoscope is operated after the setting operation, by reading the set value from the memory, the electronic endoscope can be used in accordance with the set value.
However, when the setting of the operation condition is continuously performed, since the change of the operation condition and the recording operation of the set value to the memory are simultaneously carried out, the recording operation disturbs the change of the operation condition, and thus, the operation condition can not be instantly changed on change of the set value. For example, when the brightness level is substantially changed by continuous switching operations, a brightness adjustment of the screen might be delayed since the recording operation is continuously carried out. Thus, the change of the operation condition cannot be performed promptly on change of the set value.
On the other hand, regarding character information such as a name of a patient indicated by a monitor, in a conventional electronic endoscope, even when the character information is not changed, the character information might be recorded in the memory. Namely, the character information, which is rarely changed, is repeatedly recorded in the memory, and thus, a useless recording operation might be performed.
An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic endoscope in which a change of the operation condition is promptly performed when changing the set value, and further character information is recorded in a memory only when necessary.
According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic endoscope having a display processor, a setting processor and a set value recording processor.
The display processor radiates light, which is output from a light source, to an object through an endoscope, to obtain and display an image of the object on a screen. The setting processor determines set values by which an operation condition of at least one of the display processor and the electronic endoscope is adjusted. The set value recording processor temporarily stores the set values in a volatile memory, and reads the set values from the volatile memory to record the set values in a non-volatile memory at regular time interval.